I normally always keep right on top of maintenance, especially oil changes for the various vehicles in our family. However this has been a really busy period of time for me, and I completely lost track of when the next oil change on my Daughter's 3i was supposed to happen. I did check the oil regularly, and that is actually what 'helped' me go astray, along with a couple long trips she made that didn't register with me. With the normal 7.5K OCIs I'd been doing, this 3i has never needed any top-off whatsoever, and the full synthetic oil always looks great on the dipstick and the rag. And that continued to be the case, all the way through 3.4K 'extra' miles! Every oil check never looked anything less than outstanding.
So at 10.9K miles since the last change, I finally woke up and realized that we had gone into overtime. Having previously read many accounts of very long OCIs with full synthetic, I wasn't overly concerned. However it was breaking new ground for me, given the previous max OCI of 7.5K (for 2 of our vehicles). I also figured this extended OCI had given me a good reason to have a UOA done, which is also something new for me.
When the UOA came back with flying colors, I was pleased but not surprised by the results. I'm not posting this with the intent of trying to convince anyone to do longer OCIs - it's just an FYI about the results from one vehicle for anyone who is interested in this stuff. Frankly, I'm not even certain what I'm going to do going forward. I'll almost certainly extend my OCIs, but have not yet determined by how much. In any case, I'm now MUCH less concerned about doing 'book' OCIs than I was prior to this experience.
So at 10.9K miles since the last change, I finally woke up and realized that we had gone into overtime. Having previously read many accounts of very long OCIs with full synthetic, I wasn't overly concerned. However it was breaking new ground for me, given the previous max OCI of 7.5K (for 2 of our vehicles). I also figured this extended OCI had given me a good reason to have a UOA done, which is also something new for me.
When the UOA came back with flying colors, I was pleased but not surprised by the results. I'm not posting this with the intent of trying to convince anyone to do longer OCIs - it's just an FYI about the results from one vehicle for anyone who is interested in this stuff. Frankly, I'm not even certain what I'm going to do going forward. I'll almost certainly extend my OCIs, but have not yet determined by how much. In any case, I'm now MUCH less concerned about doing 'book' OCIs than I was prior to this experience.